Yeah, there's no health insurance app there, either.
Jeb Bush believes Obamacare should be repealed. (At least he's got that part of running for the Republican presidential nomination talking point down pat.) But, like all Republicans, where he runs into some trouble on it is that whole replacement part. He was asked about it in Tempe, Arizona, on Thursday, and after delivering the same, vague "consumer-driven" personal responsibility stuff all Republicans say, he
went off on a very Bush-like riff about his Apple Watch and the future of health care.
"On this device in five years will be applications that will allow me to manage my health care in ways that five years ago were not even possible. I'll have the ability, someone will, you know, because of my blood sugar, there’ll be a wireless, there'll be, someone will send me a signal. It'll come here, I'll get a double beep saying, 'You just ate a butterscotch sundae' or something like that. 'You went way over the top. You're a diabetic, you can't do that,' whatever.
"We'll be able to guide our own health care decisions in a way that will make us healthy. And ultimately, we have to get to a health system, away from a disease system."
For a "policy wonk" and the "smart one" there are some pretty basic problems here. First off, the Apple Watch doesn't come automatically equipped with a bunch of "someones" who are there just to monitor his blood sugar and make the device go beep. He needs an actual doctor who has evaluated his health, and his diabetes, who will give him the information he needs to make that device work for him. In order to see that doctor he needs, guess what!, health insurance. Which millions of people will lose if Obamacare is repealed like he wants it to be. Or as Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) put it:
.@jebbush I had cancer. There’s no app for that.
— @DWStweets
Then there's where he really let his being a Bush show—the assumption that just anyone can
afford an Apple Watch. If you can't afford health insurance—and millions can't without some assistance like, say, Obamacare—then you sure as hell can't afford a personal health-tracking device. But you can't really expect a Bush to get that basic problem. To quote
Jeb's brother, "People have access to health care in America. […] After all, you just go to an emergency room."
Six years of intensive healthcare policy debate later, Jeb Bush's answer is an Apple Watch and we don't know what, but it probably involves the emergency room.